


When Skeletons Live

by soloproject



Series: Blood Red Summer [3]
Category: The Following
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:45:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soloproject/pseuds/soloproject
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The conversations continue and turns out Ryan has a following too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Skeletons Live

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know, I am always falling to my old standby but C&C is my favorite band. Sorry that this part is so lame. I will close out the UST soon, promise.
> 
> The Broken:  
>  _I'll follow your every move in a stride that wills disguise_  
>  Little markings clue the find  
> Your red lips speak of painted figures  
> The teeth of mangled little listeners  
> The thoughts that hide your rusty scissors there  
> And hooded men are swinging honesty across this violence  
> Obscurity has no hero

“Hello, Ryan.” Joe’s voice is low and buttery warm. Ryan almost feels his eyelids fall just a little—Joe’s voice has always been a deadly lullaby. It hasn’t changed, in all the years that Ryan has known of him. It is the same voice with which he could deliver a lecture and thrall an audience. 

“How are things?” Joe asks. To an outside listener, it sounds like a friend calling to catch up on old times. But it takes herculean effort for Ryan to think of something, anything he can say back to Joe Carroll, who is more than just an academic of the finest calibre, a killer of utmost sophistication and a sociopath of the rarest darkest kind. 

Once upon a time, Joe was a friend who had Ryan over for dinner and looked him in the eye, handsome and smiling and happier than Ryan could ever hope to be in his life. Ryan was once so jealous of Joe’s life but Joe was so warm and friendly to him that he couldn’t even bring himself to hate the man—the man who had terrorized his friends, stolen Joey, hurt Claire. 

Ryan looks around the office. It’s dim and most everyone’s gone home. Parker’s still around here somewhere, probably dozing off on the shitty couch provided by the bureau in the shitty office she doesn’t deserve. 

On the other end, Joe patiently breathes before saying. “How is that young man who’s held up so well against Charlie, hm?”

“He’s fine.”

“Oh.” Joe says, his voice the tone of wonder. “How wonderful. I am afraid I cannot say the same for Charlie.”

“What do you mean?” Ryan asks.

“Charlie was a wonderful soldier. He will be much missed but his legacy remains intact.” Joe says, lightly. Ryan closes his eyes for a moment, imagining the knife going into Charlie’s side, or maybe a garrotte tightening around his pale neck. Ryan has to live with these images every day, mostly generated from his own imagination; easy, thanks to his potent source material. 

“Did he die an easy death?”

“He died with honor,” Joe says. “I cannot say you deserve the same as does your young Agent Mike Weston. I know everything about him. Big family, good boy, dog person. Ordinary. Won’t be missed.”

“You’re wrong,” Ryan says, vehemently. He knows Joe is baiting him, getting him to give something away and goddamit, he’s done it. 

Joe laughs. “Of course! I am _delighted_ , Ryan, I can’t tell you how many more people on your side I must destroy.” And then he hangs up.

 

Mike finds him hours later, wrapped around a bottle of vodka. He peels Ryan off from around it with an exasperated look on his face and prods him on the shoulder until Ryan winces and opens his eyes. 

“Don’t answer it next time. When he calls,” Mike says. Practical Mike with the fresh scar on his face and his pale, steadfast gaze. Ryan’s eyes trip down to his mouth and then sighs.

“You know I can’t do that.” Ryan tries to drain the bottle but Mike just takes it from him and puts it far away.

“It’s because I’m one of his followers,” Ryan tries to explain, through a haze of alcohol. His hands feel like lead but he sticks his fingers in Mike’s hair and drags him closer. “Where Joe goes, I follow.”

Mike just shakes his head and heaves Ryan to his feet. “Don’t forget, Ryan—where _you_ go, I follow. We are going to catch this son of a bitch and we are going to make him pay. Together.”

 

Mike is the only person in the world that Ryan hasn’t told about his Death Curse. He thinks Mike will brush the idea aside. After everything that’s happened, Mike’s pretty willing to walk right towards Death if it means doing the right thing else prove Ryan wrong. There isn’t anyone quite in the world like Mike Weston and Ryan is terrified of losing him. 

Everything with regards to the Joe Carroll case seems to be going south. He is nowhere to be found, yet the killings continue. And now Tyson’s in the hospital and Claire has all but vanished into thin air and Joe’s following is quiet. 

Mike edges into the room where Tyson sleeps and taps Ryan on the shoulder. “Ryan, you should go home and get some rest.” He says. “I can stay and keep an eye on him.” 

“No.” Ryan says, stubbornly but Mike glares at him. 

“There is a car waiting for you, downstairs. Nothing wrong will happen, trust me.” 

 

Ryan’s barely two steps into the bare apartment the Bureau commissioned for him when his phone rings. He doesn’t even have to look to see that it’s Joe.

“Hello, Ryan.” Joe says.

“Don’t you have friends among your following to talk to? There are literally hundreds of them,” Ryan growls, loosening his tie and pacing the apartment looking for alcohol.

“I find they lack a certain wisdom. Your mind is much more entertaining, Ryan. I know how it works and the way you treat it, alcohol, terrible food and whatnot,” Joe huffs into the phone. “I’m surprised you’re still alive, truly.”

Ryan locates the bottle of bourbon. It is two-thirds full, just enough to knock him out for the night. “How’s Claire?” He sneers into the phone.

“Now, now,” Joe chides. “I wanted to ask you, Ryan, have you enjoyed killing yourself lately? You say my following is legion but I may have to recruit more. You are taking away as many as I am finding.”

“They’re nobody.” Ryan shot back. “They’re pathetic, soulless slaves. They aren’t _people_.” It’s a base reaction more than anything, a pathetic attempt to rile Joe up.

“Please, Ryan,” Joe only says softly. “You’re much better than that. Enjoy your evening.”

 

Picking up the phone becomes a bad habit.

There are some small victories. Finding leads, small careless slip ups amongst the followers helps them. 

It’s morbid but Ryan starts looking forward to their conversations.

“Tell me about your day?” Joe asks.

“FBI, six; Joe Caroll’s killer freak circus, thirteen.” Ryan tells him as Joe laughs, delighted.

“Let me tell you about mine. Something extraordinary happened today,” Joe said. “It’s always marvellous to witness the birth of someone special. I know you recognize potential, Ryan, you’re good at it.” You found me, after all, hangs in the air after Joe’s statement. Ryan knows he can spot talent but it doesn't change the fact that he is still a poor judge of character. It’s part of the reason why he keeps everyone at arm’s length. 

“Remember Jacob?” Ryan’s ear quirks. 

“You remember him as Billy from when this all began. He was so eager when he first came to me, so fresh and young…and inexperienced. He’s been through a lot since finally rejoining him and I must say, he’s so _different_. His partner Paul gave his life to him and the change in Jacob is so remarkable, really. Even far beyond what I had come to expect of Emma or even…but I am going on. He strangled Paul even though he loved him and Paul came to him, willingly because he loved Jacob. Ryan, isn’t that such a beautiful death?”

Ryan can imagine Joe where he sits now with a look of proud ecstasy on his face and feels sick to his stomach.

“Are you actually gloating to me about your mindless killer groupies?”

“Oh no, Jacob is special,” Joe insists. “I feel he will grow to become more than just a ‘groupie’, as you say but really, an artist of his own right. What I saw him in, Ryan, was an awakening. There is something enlightened in him now. I’m sure you can see the same in, say, your Agent Weston.”

Joe hangs up, his laugh echoing in Ryan’s ear.

Ryan looks up at Mike and Debra and the rest of the team sitting around the table. 

“Get anything?” Ryan asks.

Mike gives him a small nod. “It’s not much but with the tech loaned to us we now have a general direction at least. We can triangulate now based on other areas of activity of the following.”

There’s a beat before Parker springs into action and rallies the rest of the team. “Let’s move, people. We have to coordinate scouts, lines of communication and we need to do it as quickly and stealthily as we can. Good work, Hardy.” She says before striding off.

“I’ll drive you home,” Mike says and he holds his hand out for Ryan to take.

 

The drive is silent until Mike breaks it. “What Joe tells you, don’t let it get to you. I think he’s crazy for sure but all this taunting it just doesn’t fit the profile of a serial killer.”

“Because he’s evolved,” Ryan acquiesces. “He has people to do it for him now; he can sit back and let them take the wheel.”

“No, Joe Caroll has control issues. He won’t let that things go that easily.” Mike argues, taking the exit to Ryan’s apartment compound. “I’m just saying this is playing out to be more of a revenge fantasy than his usual ritualized, artistic rendition of death. I mean it, Ryan, do not let him get to you. He’s not going to win.”

“He has Claire and Joey. He got my best friend. He got my sister. He got you.” Ryan’s voice skates over the last word. Mike just stares at him intently. There are bags under his eyes, a testament to their sleepless work but probably more aggravated by nightmares now. There are scars on his face that are still not fully healed. They make him Mike look older. But the eyes, it’s the eyes that scare Ryan a little bit. They’re more serious now, more hell-bent on justice. He recognizes that look, had carried it in the early days of his career. It’s only a matter of time until it destroys Mike, if Joe doesn’t get to him first.

“The list of people he can use against me isn’t that long,” Ryan mutters. They’re pulled up to the side of his building and sit there. “But we’ll get him, I know we will.”

“We will definitely catch this bastard.” Mike says, earnestly and that tone is what Ryan likes best about him, really, because the emotion carries over to him and makes him feel like he can do things.

Ryan’s not even thirty minutes in his flat when the doorbell rings. He opens it to find Mike standing outside with a bag of food and a six pack of beer.

Ryan makes a face at him but stands aside to let him in. “I’m going to go…put pants on.” 

“Yeah, good idea,” Mike says in that unperturbed way of his, while he bustles around the kitchen and hands a beer to Ryan when he comes back wearing a pair of sweatpants.

They stand for a while, drinking beer and watching each other. 

“I meant what I said about the not taking Joe seriously part, Ryan,” Mike says, suddenly. He puts the bottle down and takes Ryan’s hand. “We’re going to catch him but you need to keep it together. I—I need you to keep it together. For Claire and Joey, for Tyson, for your sister and—for me.” His fingers curl tighter around Ryan’s. “You can do that. I am right behind you.”


End file.
